A user may use a computer to find a geographical location on a map. In general, a geographical location may be a city, a geographical feature (e.g., a mountain, a river, etc.), a business, a residence, or any other type of geographical location. The computer may include both offline and online software for the user to find the geographical location. As one example of online software, a user may use an Internet browser (“a web browser,” “a browser,” etc.), such as Google Chrome, to visit a Uniform Resource Geographical location (“URL”) of an online service, such as a two-dimensional geographical map provider like Google Maps (located at the URL of “maps.google.com”), to find the geographical location.
The online service may accept a query via the Internet browser for the geographical location. The query may include a geographical identifier, such as a specific postal address (e.g., “1600 Amphitheatre Way, Mountain View, Calif.”), a generic search term (e.g., “computers”), a proper name (e.g., “Google”), or any other type of query for a geographical location. In response, the online service may transmit objects to the Internet browser to display the geographical location on a two-dimensional geographical map in a viewport of the Internet browser. The objects may include a graphical representation of the geographical location, images for displaying the two-dimensional geographical map in which the geographical location is located, instructions for displaying the graphical representation overlaid on the images, vector instructions for drawing the two-dimensional geographical map, or any other objects used in displaying the two-dimensional geographical map.
In general, the two-dimensional geographical map provided by the online service is a top-down perspective of a geographical area and lacks a three-dimensional perspective. The two-dimensional geographical map may illustrate streets, buildings, parks, rivers, lakes, and other two-dimensional geographical features in the geographical area, and these features may be displayed in an outline representation. However, without three-dimensional information, such as depth, the user may be unaware of the whether the displayed geographical area is hilly, flat, or mountainous; has tall or short buildings; or, has other such terrain.
As the two-dimensional geographical map may lack a three-dimensional perspective, the user may rely on another online service to provide a three-dimensional geographical map of the area in which the geographical location is located. However, visiting the URL of the separate online service may require the user to open a new Internet browser window or a new Internet browser tab to display the three-dimensional geographical map. As the two-dimensional geographical map may be interactive, the user may have established a view of the geographical location in the original Internet browser window or tab that the user wishes to maintain. Hence, when the user visits the online service providing the three-dimensional geographical map, the user may be required to go through a series of steps to recreate the view the user previously set up through interacting with the two-dimensional geographical map. This process may be frustrating, time-consuming, and may detract from the overall experience of interacting with the two-dimensional and three-dimensional geographical maps.